NO TIME TO DIE - Questions Thread

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  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    He died.
  • Posts: 15,106
    He died.

    He could come back, although that would involve retcon and would be extremely contrived, but explosions are not always lethal for heroes and villains. For the record, I don't think it would be a good idea, in fact I think the next Bond film will be another reboot, that said there is a possibility that they'll have him survive. Especially since he now can't be near Madeleine or Mathilde. Getting back to the statu quo ante would cheapen his sacrifice big time, but there you ago.

    Also, please bear in mind that I am probably in denial.
  • Posts: 1,858
    Only Craig's version of Bond died. When the time comes, Bond will be reintroduced in new a reimagined series, which has already happen many time before. No big deal.
  • Posts: 15,106
    delfloria wrote: »
    Only Craig's version of Bond died. When the time comes, Bond will be reintroduced in new a reimagined series, which has already happen many time before. No big deal.

    Well, Bond dying I'm any iteration is pretty much a big deal. But they just blown away any preconceived ideas about the character and the franchise. Nobody will take Bond for granted again. I must say, they were bold.
  • Posts: 2,402
    So, why did Nomi shadow Bond?
    Her mission is to secure Obruchev, who apparently was spotted by some kind of intel source in Cuba. M later says they thought Bond was dead. So what's she doing in Jamaica? How does she know he is there and what does he, at that point have to do with the whole thing anyway? He basically only takes up Felix's request because she annoyed him (or didn't ask the right questions).
    Maybe she is following Leiter and Ash and finds Bond through them, but the first time we see her is on the side of the road right outside Bond's driveway even before Leiter and Ash start shadowing him, so that doesn't really work

    Edit: And while we are at it: How and why is Primo there as well?

    Primo is there to get a DNA sample from Bond (it's implied he swipes it from the fingerprint oils on Bond's scotch glass after Bond leaves, but you don't see that happen on screen). Keep in mind that at that point he is still working for SPECTRE and is in on the plan to kill Bond with Heracles.
  • Posts: 15,106
    Here's a question: the name Heracles, is it an allusion on how the hero Heracles died?
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,277
    Ludovico wrote: »
    He died.

    He could come back, although that would involve retcon and would be extremely contrived, but explosions are not always lethal for heroes and villains. For the record, I don't think it would be a good idea, in fact I think the next Bond film will be another reboot, that said there is a possibility that they'll have him survive. Especially since he now can't be near Madeleine or Mathilde. Getting back to the statu quo ante would cheapen his sacrifice big time, but there you ago.

    Also, please bear in mind that I am probably in denial.

    He's dead. I can't see Bond #7 being saddled with all the Madeline and Vesper baggage. Truly I can't.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited October 2021 Posts: 7,546
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Here's a question: the name Heracles, is it an allusion on how the hero Heracles died?

    Here is from my friend, who did a classics major and knows a lot:
    Heracles murdered his wife and daughter while under the effects of a brutal, divinely originated curse.
    My take: Easy to imagine Bond contracting the virus as a "divinely originated curse" upon him, whereas if he were to interact with Madeleine or Mathilde, he would have killed them.
    Heracles was at the end of the day a civilizing hero. There's a lot that goes into that phrase, but the barebones of it are that every labour he undertook or monster he killed paved the way for common people to move in and thrive. If you're a bad guy that wants to achieve world government or control or whatever, you might just pitch it as a 'civilizing' venture.
    My take: Safin certainly justified his actions as a "civilizing" venture; helping make the world a better place.
    Heracles was, more often than not, seen as entirely out of control. His divine strength hurt a f***ton of people, so he was admired and feared.
    My take: Good allegory for Bond.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    So, why did Nomi shadow Bond?
    Her mission is to secure Obruchev, who apparently was spotted by some kind of intel source in Cuba. M later says they thought Bond was dead. So what's she doing in Jamaica? How does she know he is there and what does he, at that point have to do with the whole thing anyway? He basically only takes up Felix's request because she annoyed him (or didn't ask the right questions).
    Maybe she is following Leiter and Ash and finds Bond through them, but the first time we see her is on the side of the road right outside Bond's driveway even before Leiter and Ash start shadowing him, so that doesn't really work

    Edit: And while we are at it: How and why is Primo there as well?

    Primo is there to get a DNA sample from Bond (it's implied he swipes it from the fingerprint oils on Bond's scotch glass after Bond leaves, but you don't see that happen on screen). Keep in mind that at that point he is still working for SPECTRE and is in on the plan to kill Bond with Heracles.

    It's actually the toothbrush. Valdo has it in Cuba. Only saw that in my second viewing. So the why part of my question was unnecessary, but that still leaves the how. I guess SPECTRE just knows things. And they wanted Bond at the party to kill him, so it's understandable that Primo doesn't just put a bullet in his skull. Still leaves open how they had planned to get him to Cuba and what Nomi was doing there at all.

    But honestly, the more I think about it, the more I like that whole section. Just the fact that Bond and Paloma actually ARE Valdo's "escort", because Ash sent them to get him out, only they don't know about it and think they are taking him from the villains not to them, is really nice spy thriller storytelling that is obscured by all the fantastic fireworks Craig, de Armas and Lynch and Wright and Magnussen shoot off in that section of the film. Really cool.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,546
    Valdo has Bond's toothbrush in Cuba? That's hilarious. Totally missed that.
  • Posts: 15,106
    And is it me or are there some inspirations from Halloween (the movie) in the way Sagin is depicted in the PTS?
  • edited October 2021 Posts: 4,408
    marc wrote: »
    And what was Safin's comment about "they think they need you" or something like that about?
    I think he meant SPECTRE needed Obruchev, but he was already sure SPECTRE wouldn't be successful because of his own plot. So they were deluded into thinking Obruchev would help them.

    I think Safin had got to Obruchev years ago. However, he told Obruchev to go with Primo as part of Safin's plan was annihilating Spectre.
    Venutius wrote: »
    Safin's an ardent eugenicist who believes in culling the 'unproductive' elements of the world's population as part of a Great Reset. He wouldn't be the first multi-billionaire rumoured to harbour those beliefs, after all!

    Does Safin actually use the term the 'Great Reset'? I recall him mentioning that Bond is only interested in the status quo and Safin is trying to bring about the next stage of human evolution. Basically wiping out anyone deemed a threat and moving towards a utopian society.
    matt_u wrote: »
    Because you don’t tell that your wife has been killed to strangers… not to mention enemies…

    Perhaps they used the excuse of the divorce all the time. Madeleine too speaks about a divorce…

    It's entirely feasible that Mr and Mrs White divorced when Madeleine was a baby or at some point before her 10th birthday.
    Belinus wrote: »
    What was Madeleine’s big secret? Was it the man in the white mask? Is so, what was it such a big secret when Bond knew half the story, it happened a long time ago and she had no idea if Safin was alive or dead?

    Madeleine's secret was Safin. After all, when Bond asks who killed all of spectre, Blofeld tell him that he's asking the wrong person and that he should speak to Madeleine. I doubt Blofeld even knew about Mathilde. Not even MI6 knew about her.

    I have a few more questions reading through this thread.....Okay:
    1. What's all this talk about buyers? Was Safin's aim to sell Heracles? That would contradict all his nonsense about being a God. Did we see the buyers?
    2. Who were those women in Safin's basement?
    3. How many times did Safin shoot Bond?
    4. Also, when Nomi asks Obruchev, "Do you know what time it is?" does he say "No?" Before she responds "Time to die!" Technically this means the film's title is said in the film.........

    wake-up-time-to-die.gif
  • marcmarc Universal Exports
    Posts: 2,610
    marc wrote: »
    I think he meant SPECTRE needed Obruchev, but he was already sure SPECTRE wouldn't be successful because of his own plot. So they were deluded into thinking Obruchev would help them.
    I think Safin had got to Obruchev years ago. However, he told Obruchev to go with Primo as part of Safin's plan was annihilating Spectre.
    Exactly. I think Safin just wanted to reassure Obruchev that SPECTRE wouldn't harm him.
    1. What's all this talk about buyers? Was Safin's aim to sell Heracles? That would contradict all his nonsense about being a God. Did we see the buyers?
    2. Who were those women in Safin's basement?
    3. How many times did Safin shoot Bond?
    4. Also, when Nomi asks Obruchev, "Do you know what time it is?" does he say "No?" Before she responds "Time to die!" Technically this means the film's title is said in the film.........
    1. Maybe Safin was very picky about his buyers, accepting only such who shared his ideology.
    2. Maybe wives/girlfriends of the workers, maybe scientists?
    3. iirc, at first 3 shots, of which 1, perhaps 2, hit Bond.
    After that two more shots, both of which hit Bond, I think.
    4. iirc, he just said 'Huh?' or 'What?' but I'm not sure.
  • RyanRyan Canada
    Posts: 692
    Ludovico wrote: »
    And is it me or are there some inspirations from Halloween (the movie) in the way Sagin is depicted in the PTS?

    100%. Safin is very much Michael Myers in the opening, or at least that's how I saw it. I posted that in the Easter eggs thread as well.

    I think Madeline shooting him is very much Dr. Loomis (how meta, in retrospect, considering who portrayed him), and of course the subsequent shot of Safin laying on the ground after falling off the upper level is a direct allusion. Shortly thereafter, once he comes to, the way he sits up is also very similar.
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    Posts: 480
    Halloween, with a grain of It. Don't forget that Fukunaga was attached to directing the whole thing, and contributed to the first drafts for the script. Having early on a scene where an evil being (well, when your name is Lucifer, there's little ambiguity) has a relaxed and reassuring conversation with a young child is quite similar to the scene with the gutter in It, part 1.
  • RyanRyan Canada
    Posts: 692
    One of my favourite scenes in the film as a whole. Perhaps part of my letdown with Safin overall was that he never quite lives up to that introduction (although I thought Malek was excellent overall).
  • AgentJamesBond007AgentJamesBond007 Vesper’s grave
    Posts: 2,632
    Does anyone know what Madeleine wrote in the piece of paper she burned in Matera?
  • HildebrandRarityHildebrandRarity Centre international d'assistance aux personnes déplacées, Paris, France
    Posts: 480
    "L'homme masqué", the masked man.
  • What were they farming at Safin’s island? What was the point of the poison garden? The weapon is clearly nanomachines so what did the liquid and plant stuff have to do with that? Why is Safin selling his weapon when he talks about being tidy? Isn’t loosing a spreading nano virus on the world at the hands of any old buyer the opposite of tidy? Why is he doing any of what he’s doing once he gets revenge on Spectre?
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited October 2021 Posts: 12,480
    I have never seen any of the Halloween movies. I don't like horror films. I just thought the opening was incredibly cool, noir vibes, eerie, and the way Safin sat up after we thought he was dead was classic old time "rising from the dead" move. Madeleine shooting Safin was GREAT because the camera just before that was clearly anticipating him dragging her out from under the bed. But she just stands up and shoots. I loved it. If it's been done exactly like that in any film of the past 20 years, I wouldn't know. I rarely go to movies and being overseas since 2010 means I am far out of the loop re movies and tv shows.
  • zebrafishzebrafish <°)))< in Octopussy's garden in the shade
    Posts: 4,341
    What were they farming at Safin’s island?

    They are farming algae, which was confirmed by Mark Tildesley:
    https://variety.com/2021/film/news/no-time-to-die-production-design-classic-james-bond-films-1235081265/
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    What were they farming at Safin’s island? What was the point of the poison garden? The weapon is clearly nanomachines so what did the liquid and plant stuff have to do with that? Why is Safin selling his weapon when he talks about being tidy? Isn’t loosing a spreading nano virus on the world at the hands of any old buyer the opposite of tidy? Why is he doing any of what he’s doing once he gets revenge on Spectre?

    The most likely, realistic answer is: They originally wanted the threat to be biological/plant based, but that didn't work with the targeted nature the ending required so they included nanobots and never really did the work to connect the two ideas well enough.

    My personal in-universe explanation: The nanobots are only the delivery mechanism developed by Obruchev. They are what can't be washed off, they are what is transmitted, they are what is "checking" the DNA for their target and then release the payload. They can "carry" whatever. In the MI6 lab they put something Hugh Dennis was working on in them and Safin possibly put something else in there or re-created the stuff MI6 were using. That only papers over the cracks, but I think it kind of works.
    However, it does open up what I think would have been a better plot point: Heracles wasn't invented as a weapon, but as a delivery mechanism for vaccines and cures for genetic disease and stuff. That takes out the pretty tired idea of everyone always wanting to replace 00 agents with technology (which doesn't land anyway) and it makes M's role in the whole thing a little less horrifying. Because as is, he at the very least should resign and probably should be fired and put in front of a judge for breaking the Biological Weapons Convention..
  • zebrafish wrote: »
    What were they farming at Safin’s island?

    They are farming algae, which was confirmed by Mark Tildesley:
    https://variety.com/2021/film/news/no-time-to-die-production-design-classic-james-bond-films-1235081265/
    Ah, so they definitely just re-wrote part of the film and didn’t have time to correct everything around it.
    What were they farming at Safin’s island? What was the point of the poison garden? The weapon is clearly nanomachines so what did the liquid and plant stuff have to do with that? Why is Safin selling his weapon when he talks about being tidy? Isn’t loosing a spreading nano virus on the world at the hands of any old buyer the opposite of tidy? Why is he doing any of what he’s doing once he gets revenge on Spectre?

    The most likely, realistic answer is: They originally wanted the threat to be biological/plant based, but that didn't work with the targeted nature the ending required so they included nanobots and never really did the work to connect the two ideas well enough.

    My personal in-universe explanation: The nanobots are only the delivery mechanism developed by Obruchev. They are what can't be washed off, they are what is transmitted, they are what is "checking" the DNA for their target and then release the payload. They can "carry" whatever. In the MI6 lab they put something Hugh Dennis was working on in them and Safin possibly put something else in there or re-created the stuff MI6 were using. That only papers over the cracks, but I think it kind of works.
    However, it does open up what I think would have been a better plot point: Heracles wasn't invented as a weapon, but as a delivery mechanism for vaccines and cures for genetic disease and stuff. That takes out the pretty tired idea of everyone always wanting to replace 00 agents with technology (which doesn't land anyway) and it makes M's role in the whole thing a little less horrifying. Because as is, he at the very least should resign and probably should be fired and put in front of a judge for breaking the Biological Weapons Convention..

    Yeah, that would have been much better. I hated M’s role in this.
  • Re: Safin's facial disfigurement (if it hasn't already been covered)...

    Have only seen the film once (so far), but I'd swear it was mentioned that Safin's family was murdered by Mr. White using dioxin.

    Isn't Dioxin the poison that was used -- likely by Putin's henchmen -- in an assassination attempt on Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko some years ago?

    Yushchenko survived, but the dioxin caused severe facial disfigurement... For a number of years afterwards he looked like the freaking Phantom of the Opera. (The condition later mostly subsided, but it took over 10 years.)

    Note that Safin's facial scars (what we can see of them) look worse in the opening Norway scene than they do later in the film, when much time has passed.
  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 3,996
    Did anyone else think it was a bit puzzling that Bond wasn't interested in any explanation from Madeleine after he's attacked in Matera? She saved his life in SP yet he seems to think she told them where he was. Dumping her on a train with barely a word from her seemed a bit odd. Or am I missing something?

  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    Posts: 5,970
    Did anyone else think it was a bit puzzling that Bond wasn't interested in any explanation from Madeleine after he's attacked in Matera? She saved his life in SP yet he seems to think she told them where he was. Dumping her on a train with barely a word from her seemed a bit odd. Or am I missing something?
    I just took it as there was no time ;)
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 16,344
    If Blofeld put the bomb in Blofeld's grave and it was just there waiting for him until he turned up, how come all of the cars and bikes were there as well? How long had they been sat there?
  • DenbighDenbigh UK
    edited October 2021 Posts: 5,970
    mtm wrote: »
    If Blofeld put the bomb in Blofeld's grave and it was just there waiting for him until he turned up, how come all of the cars and bikes were there as well? How long had they been sat there?
    I'm not 100% sure but my assumption is that maybe Primo and his men followed Bond and Madeleine to Matera, then either they planted the bomb or the bomb was already there, ready to blow up when the owner of the graveyard and the boy contacted them to tell him he had arrived.
  • AgentJamesBond007AgentJamesBond007 Vesper’s grave
    Posts: 2,632
    Did anyone else think it was a bit puzzling that Bond wasn't interested in any explanation from Madeleine after he's attacked in Matera? She saved his life in SP yet he seems to think she told them where he was. Dumping her on a train with barely a word from her seemed a bit odd. Or am I missing something?

    I thought it had to do with the fact that he was visiting Vesper's tomb. Although he let her go, the pain of her betrayal remains and his emotions were high as a result. And all of the sudden, the first woman he's allowed into his heart after Vesper betrayed him as well? He might've emotionally shut down.
  • LeonardPineLeonardPine The Bar on the Beach
    Posts: 3,996
    Did anyone else think it was a bit puzzling that Bond wasn't interested in any explanation from Madeleine after he's attacked in Matera? She saved his life in SP yet he seems to think she told them where he was. Dumping her on a train with barely a word from her seemed a bit odd. Or am I missing something?

    I thought it had to do with the fact that he was visiting Vesper's tomb. Although he let her go, the pain of her betrayal remains and his emotions were high as a result. And all of the sudden, the first woman he's allowed into his heart after Vesper betrayed him as well? He might've emotionally shut down.

    That's a feasible explanation. Thanks.
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